A Look at Plastic Surgery Statistics

• Posted on Ariana+
• in Enhancement Techniques, Women's Health
• on March 8, 2018
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Every year the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) publishes a report on plastic surgery procedural statistics. This report contains statistics on both surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures performed in the US in 2017.

We think it’s both important and interesting to take a look at cosmetic surgery trends and try to understand what it means about our societies attitude towards physical self improvement and women’s health.

Surgical Versus Minimally Invasive Procedures

First we’ll state that statistics show that the number of all cosmetic procedures reported from 2016 to 2017 has increased overall by 2 percent.

As far as the specific types of procedures, the trend is that people are looking towards new and innovative minimally invasive procedures to improve their appearance. As you might guess, the number of minimally invasive procedures performed greatly outnumbers the number of surgical procedures, roughly 15.7M to 1.8M. But that’s not all, the growth of minimally invasive procedures from 2016 to 2017 was also larger, 2% versus 1%. The majority of surgical procedures target improvements to the body, whereas the majority of minimally invasive procedures are performed on the face.

It seems likely that the growth and popularity of minimally invasive procedures has both to do with advancements in medical technology as well as our cultures growing emphasis on health.

Breast Related Cosmetic Surgery

Breast augmentation and lift surgeries accounted for 23% of all cosmetic surgery procedures. The number of procedures done has grown roughly 3 percent from 2016. This follows the trend of steady growth of these procedures, which has shown 53% growth since 2000. This seems to represent a consistent popularity of breast augmentation surgery rather than a new trend. In comparison, the number of lower body lifts has increased by 4,284% and the number of upper arm lifts has increased by 5,235% since 2000. Those procedures are clearly the hotter trends in surgical cosmetic procedures.

Another interesting statistic from this past years report is that the number of breast reduction surgeries has shown an 11% increase from 2016. This was after these types of procedures saw a 4% decline from 2015 to 2016. There’s no way to know from this report why there was such a dramatic increase in breast reductions, but it is a procedure where excess fat, glandular tissue and skin are removed to make the breasts more proportional to the body. Generally speaking, breast reduction is known to have a high satisfaction level among patients because it improves comfort and quality of life.

It is reasonable to conclude that although breast augmentation surgery remains a popular cosmetic procedure, there is also a growing interest in having cosmetic surgery to maintain a healthy and happy lifestyle.

Healthy is Happy

Our takeaway from looking at plastic surgery statistics is that trends seem to support the idea that people will always want to improve the way they look, but are also looking for safer more effective ways of doing so.

Technological developments and research allow for new non-invasive procedures to eliminate fat cells and shape your body. Procedures using ultrasound, radio frequency, infrared light, vacuum massage and injectable medication are the some of the fastest growing.

When exercise, diet and your natural physical features aren’t enough to get your body to where you want it to be, we have more options than ever. If you’re considering breast augmentation surgery, it doesn’t hurt to consider some of the natural breast enhancement alternatives. Read more at our homepage.

*References for this post can be found at the ASPS website.